Barbara laughed clear and high at this.
"Oh!" she shrilled, melodiously derisive, "that's what I think I am, of course. But no one has ever agreed with me after knowing me more than three days. This is your third day, Robert. It's well for me you're going while you labour under this flattering delusion."
"It's no delusion," averred Robert, stoutly, far past wit, and with no weapon left but bluntness. "You are the loveliest thing in the world."
This, in Barbara's own opinion, was nonsense. But she liked to hear him say it, nonsense or not. She pondered for a moment, her face turned away indifferently, that he might not see she was pleased.
"You contradict yourself," she retorted. "You know angels are not in the world!"
"One is!" said Robert.
"I like you so much better, Robert, when you're saying clever things like that," said Barbara, patronisingly, "than when you are just stupid, and don't do anything but just look at me, as you do sometimes!"
She was too young to know that when a man can be witty with a woman he is not, at the moment, so engrossed in her but that he is able to think of himself.
Before Robert could reply they were past the miry ground, and Barbara had once more set her black horse at the gallop. The sorrel needed no urging to follow,—and indeed, for a few minutes both riders were fully occupied in preventing the ride from degenerating into a headlong race, so emulous were the two horses. The road was still very bad, broken with ruts, holes, and boulders, and the pace was therefore full of peril. The black just escaped plunging his fore legs into a bog-hole, and the narrowness of the escape seemed to make him lose nerve. Robert saw with anxiety that Barbara, though her horsemanship equalled her canoeing, was just now in a far too reckless mood.
"Wait, please, my dear lady," he begged. "This is no road for fast riding. That good beast of yours just escaped a bad fall, and he's a bit nervous. Let's walk them till we get to better ground."